Batch: 1

Recipe:

• 3 lbs Maris Otter Pale
• .5 lbs English Chocolate Malt ?
• .75 lbs American Caramel 60*L [Crystal]
• 4 lbs Dry Light (malt extract)
• .33 oz Galena (Pellets 13.00 %AA) boiled 60 min
• .75 oz Cascade (Pellets 5.50 %AA) boiled 30 min
• 1 oz Tettnanger (Pellets 4.50 %AA) boiled 5 min
• yeast: White Labs WLP002 English Ale [used wyeast 1338]

Original Gravity: n/a

Notes:

Color very light.  Did I get all the correct grains?  I will attempt another batch without the Chocolates for comparison.

Forgot to measure OG.  Oops.

Fermentation:

• Sat 8 May 1:19 — There is gaseous activity and a scummy froth, so all must be well.
• Tue 11 May 17:20 — The lowest temperature I have seen is about 60 and the highest is about 64.  I am seeing a bubble from the tube about every dozen seconds these last two days.
• Mon 17 May 20:34 — (Note from Matt:  I have a feeling you’ll end up with more of an “amber ale”.  Having just brewed a batch myself, looking at the dark malt ratios, mine were considerably higher.  I don’t know why they gave you “pilsner” dry malt — I would have gone with “amber”, myself.  Pilsner is the lighest, followed by “light”, followed by “amber”.  Normally, for a darker ale, you’d use “amber”.  It should still be potable, though — it’s still beer!)
• Tue 18 May 20:02 — It looks just fine. I will switch airlocks tonight.
  Should I give as much time as possible in the carboy to compensate for these slower fermentation speeds (assumed from lower temps and slower bubbles)?
• Tue 18 May 22:15 — (Note from Matt:  Yeah, in theory you can leave it in the carboy for a month or more.  But that assumes you have really good sanitation and not a lot of microbial stuff floating around in the air.  My experience is that leaving it in for more than a couple of weeks results in weird flavors.)
• Sun 23 may 18:36 — It tastes like flat beer.  Seems pretty well balanced.  The bitterness cuts fast and then disappears.  Pleasantly malty.  Not a lot of aroma because that comes mostly with the head I suppose, but it’s not boozy either.
• Sun 23 May 20:04 — With the small valve in place it’s bubbling about 35-40 seconds.

Bottled:

Final Gravity: n/a

ABV: ABV = 131.25 * (OG – FG)

End Notes:

I used too much secondary sugar as the beer was so effervescent that I was only able to open cold bottles (opening warm bottles resulted in uncontrollable frothing over, though since I use flip top bottles I was able to reseal and cool these transgressions).

This beer had an absolutely wonderful aroma in the head.  Delightful.  Not sure about reproducing it as the color suggests I may have made some error with the malts and the unusual brewing temperatures meant the beer spent a month in the carboy and another month in the bottles (while I jetted off to France).

Finally these notes are incomplete because I wote this post post hoc culling the data from various e-mail (and my shaky memory) to and from my brewing mentor.

(I picked my recipe from among those on-line.  I think this is where I found it.  You can find others like this one or this one.)